Skip to main content

No Winner in Ultra-Mobile Computing Race

Ultra-mobile computing could far outsell desktop and notebook PCs in the long-run, and is now garnering much attention from semiconductor firms, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

Apparently, Intel is gearing up to do battle with ARM -- the RISC-based, incumbent, intellectual property (IP) company that has dominated the embedded mobile semiconductor market for consumer electronics devices for much of this decade.

"Mobile devices are now performing many more computing-related tasks than in the past, thus, placing additional performance and power demands on processors," says Jim McGregor, In-Stat analyst.

"But battery technology cannot currently keep pace with these ever-increasing demands and, at the same time, consumers want compact mobile devices that they can easily slip into a pocket, precluding the use of a larger battery. Processing solutions that offer high-performance, while limiting power consumption, are needed."

The In-Stat research covers the worldwide market for Ultra Mobile Device microprocessors. It examines the battle between processor architectures, which are the hearts and brains of these new devices.

In-Stat's market study found the following:

- Intel's expansion into emerging form factors, such as UMDs and MIDs, with low-power products expands the list of competitors.

- Applications will dictate solutions in the short-run; other factors, such as economies of scale and relationships, will decide solutions in the long-run.

- There will be no clear semiconductor company "winner" in the short-run.

Popular posts from this blog

Chinese AI Models Cut U.S. Lab Share in Half

The trillion-dollar cloud hyperscaler build-out was underwritten by a simple bet: that enterprises would keep paying a premium for Frontier AI compute indefinitely. The latest market data suggests that AI infrastructure investment is being tested faster than anyone budgeted for, and the shift is not a forecast. It already happened. The Market Flipped in a Year Juniper Research reports that American frontier labs -- Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic among them -- previously accounted for roughly 70 percent of the work run through OpenRouter; the open marketplace where developers choose between competing models. Today that share has fallen to around 30 percent. Why? Chinese models are now running for up to 90 percent less than their U.S. counterparts on the OpenRouter platform. It's not a gradual erosion. It is a market share collapse, and it happened inside a single budget cycle. Cheap Wins Volume, Quality Still Commands a Premium The economic picture is not uniformly bearish for Wester...